B.C. mom calling for Facebook-free hour to combat cyberbullies

Glenda Luymes, Postmedia News10.15.2010

Traci-Lee (left) and her 13 year-old daughter Hailee Burchell (right) have set up an antibully page on Facebook to inform parents and kids about cyber bullying and how to cope with it. The Burchells hope parents will sit down with their children for one hour on November 5, 2010 and discuss the subject.

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VANCOUVER — A B.C. mother is urging parents and teens to “take back Facebook” from the cyberbullies by turning off their accounts on the popular social-networking site for one hour next month.

Traci-Lee Burchell is asking people to power down to ramp up protest over what she calls a “deplorable display of horrific and demoralizing crimes.”

The Langley-based mother of a 13-year-old daughter decided to hold to demonstration — to take place on Nov. 5 between 6 and 7 p.m. — in a bid to call attention to a recent spate of online bullying.

Burchell says she was shocked by recent news stories about a 16-year-old B.C. girl who police say was gang-raped at a party while someone took photos — images that were later posted on Facebook in an act that police called “disgusting, morally corrupt and criminal.”

One 16-year-old boy has been charged with the distribution of child pornography, although the girl’s attackers have not yet been charged.

“It’s time to take a stand for all these people,” Burchell said. “It’s time to get Facebook back to its original roots of social networking.”

Burchell says she isn’t against the site, but she thinks education and parental supervision are crucial to ensure kids realize the implications of what they’re posting and viewing.

“Parents need to be aware of what their kids are up to online,” she said. “It may not be that they’re doing the bullying, but curiosity or boredom might lead them into something terrible.”

Burchell also pointed to another B.C.-based case to reiterate her case: the posts on a memorial message board for slain Delta teen Laura Szendrei.

The board had to be closed after a number of insensitive comments and photos were posted by random users known as “trolls.” The act of trolling has become a popular online activity for some, who search for Facebook memorial sites and intentionally post inflammatory remarks.

In the case of Szendrei, an edited photo added a baseball bat to an image of the 15-year-old, eliciting angry responses from her friends before a site administrator closed the page to the public. Szendrei had been found face-down and badly beaten in a brazen, daytime attack on Sept. 15.

Burchell said she’s also aware of two young people who were cyber-bullied before experiencing real-life school bullying.

“Bullying used to happen just at school, but now with Facebook, kids are being bullied at home too. They can never get away from it.”

Stuart Poyntz, a Simon Fraser communications professor, says he understands the desire to keep kids from harm but said limiting Facebook is not a solution.

“There’s a real sense of panic among parents. It feels to many that this is beyond their purview,” he said. “(But) kids are not going to leave Facebook, and Facebook in and of itself is not the problem.”

Poyntz said kids might “stumble” into situations online that are beyond their intentions, but that education is the best defence. “If you equip young people for the world they’re already living in, you’ll be way ahead,” he said.

Burchell’s campaign for a Facebook-free hour can be found online — part of a Facebook group called “Take Back Facebook Night.”

She is urging parents to talk to their kids about what happens on the site, though she says non-parents can get involved too.

“Even if you don’t have kids, it might be a good time to reflect on whether what you’re doing online is right and acceptable.

Vancouver Province

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